Abstract: A subscriber unit is assigned a primary home agent (HA) and at least one secondary HA. Upon an initial registration, the subscriber unit first attempts to access the primary HA. Should this operation fail the subscriber unit will attempt registration with one or more of the secondary HAs. The subscriber unit may rank order a plurality of secondary HAs for which it has been programmed. Such ranking may be based upon the generation of a random number and with the random number used to rank the plurality of secondary home agents. In another operation according to the present invention, a date or time of day is employed in rank ordering the plurality of secondary home agents.

Abstract: A method for reducing the paging load in a cellular communication system is described. The cell C with the largest paging load L is first identified. Since this cell is usually included in more than one paging zone, the paging zones including cell C are identified. Thereafter, cell C is removed tentatively from each identified zone and a ratio R calculated which represents the decrease in loading on cell C due to being removed from zone z divided by the maximum increase in loading on any other cell in the network. The zone for which the ratio R is the largest is the best candidate for removing cell C therefrom. After doing so tentatively, the cell C' with the largest paging load L' thereon is identified. If the loading L is greater than L', cell C is removed permanently from the zone having the highest ratio R therefor and the process is repeated until L' is greater than L at which point the process is stopped without removing cell C from the zone with the highest ratio R.